Night music

A slender moon with a wry smile
illuminated the dark fields with a thin milk glow.

A black dog walked beside me,
and a shadow accompanied us both.

Down the dark and hedge-frizzed track we walked in silence
to the barn where the night silences folded in on themselves under high rafters.

There in the shadow of the wall where the moonlight lapped like a high tide
I slide the silver whistle from my coat. It shone pearly white. The fingerholes were six dark planets in a row.

I lifted the instrument to my lips and breathed out the music in my head,
breaking the silence with the dance of scales and melodies,
turning breath into notes that flew like birds across the empty fields to roost in the inky outlines of the wood beyond.

When my fingers froze and I could play no more I walked
out from the shadows to the moon's white spotlight.

The stars were there in silent ranks, swarmed from horizon to horizon,
drawn from the infinite silences and loneliness of space to this one place

where a man filled the night with music
and a dog hunted rats around a barn.

(c) A Mc N